


song and story

by kay_okay



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: (it happens offscreen before the story begins), AU, Angst, Christmas, Cuddling, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, France - Freeform, Hotel, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Making Out, Minor Character Death, Snow, Strangers to Lovers, Vacation, Winter, Writer!Phil, composer!Dan, inn, musician!Dan, non-youtube au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 01:05:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17132117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_okay/pseuds/kay_okay
Summary: In this universe, Dan, a music composition grad student working on his thesis, and Phil, a novelist trying his best to get over his sophomore slump, book the week before Christmas in a bed and breakfast nestled against snow-covered mountains in France. They're tapped out creatively and need the week to work on their projects.In this universe, Dan and Phil don't know each other. At least, that's how it starts.





	song and story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heyitsnxel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyitsnxel/gifts).



> title and lyrics included lifted from ["from a balance beam" by Bright Eyes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdT3Sk3YQLM). 
> 
> this is a work of fiction. this is a fictional story about fictional representations of real people. none of the events are true. no profit was made from this work. all mistakes left are my own.
> 
> this was a prompt fill for **alwayswriting** who i hope will enjoy it! thank you for the creative prompt and i hope you don't mind that i kind of took it and ran. the request was: Snowed in at a bed and breakfast and they have to share a bed. Bonus points if they are just meeting for the first time.
> 
> a huge thank you goes to my beta for also being my cheerleader, my hand-holder, pretty much everything i could've ever needed to get through this. thank you to today's word war chat crew, i spent like six hours in it and got constant support from them and could not have pushed through at the end there without all of you. i'm so excited to read all the fics in this challenge, thanks for PFF for putting it on.

  
  
  
  
  


_ so then i fell like that girl from a balance beam _ __  
_ a gymnasium of eyes were all holding on to me _ __  
_ i lifted one foot to cross the other _ __  
_ and i felt myself slipping _ __  
_ it was a small mistake _ _  
_ ___ sometimes that’s all it takes_

  
  
  
  
  


“ _ Monsieur _ ?”

The lilting French accent takes Phil out of his daydream, eyes glazed and fixed aimlessly across the white blanket of snow through the window. He hadn’t even noticed the van had stopped.

“Sorry?” Phil replies.

“I asked if you needed help with your cases. This is your stop,  _ Du Côté de Chez Anne _ .” The driver gestures out the window with the hand not holding the steering wheel, vaguely pointing at the snow-covered inn just up a stone walkway.

“Right, sorry.” Phil shakes his head a bit to attempt to un-muddle his thoughts. “I can manage, thank you.”

The driver shrugs, opening the sliding door with a switch. After Phil hops out, he grabs his suitcase from the seat next to him, and sets it delicately on the ground. He winces as it crunches harshly on the snow.

This part of Strasbourg is quaint, chilly and air thick with condensation, but festively decorated for the holidays. Garland is strung from street lamps, shop windows down the road don twinkling fairy lights and baubles. But Phil looks up at the inn, oversized and imposing and feeling like it’s looming over him, like there’s a shadow cast across his face and cutting deep into him.

He should’ve listened to his mum and gone on holiday someplace warm.

Quickly, before the driver has time to leave, Phil pivots on his heel to call through the open door.

“Excuse me, but do you know if there’s a Starbucks around here?”

The driver blinks and for a moment, Phil thinks he doesn’t understand. But then the driver’s face breaks a into a smile, a grin, then a genuinely amused laugh, shutting the door on a bewildered Phil as he drives away.

  
  
  


His room is lovely, he begrudgingly has to admit to himself. The inn is small and homey, overlooking a large paddock of evergreen trees with a landscape of mountains behind it. Phil’s goal was to come here and write, so once he digs his laptop out of his carry-on he sets it up on the desk.

Of course, Twitter and his email are logical first stops before getting any work done.

The most recent email is from Phil’s editor,  _ Let me know when you arrive!!!  _ as the subject and Phil doesn’t bother to open it. He knows Antonia’s condensed her message down into one line and the email’s empty, so Phil just hits reply and types out quickly —  _ Landed safely, it’s beautiful here. Chat later. _

Twitter isn’t much of a distraction, not that he should be allowed a distraction considering he sent himself on this journey to focus on finally getting an outline together for his book. When his fingers hoover toward Google, he can hear Antonia’s voice in his head, the things she said to him before he came to France.

_ Don’t even think about all that, Phil. It’s been a year since that book came out and the reviews aren’t relevant anymore. Second books are always harder, especially given what you’ve been through. You can bounce back. Go on holiday. Take some time for yourself and reconnect with why you love writing. _

Why he loves writing… Phil has to chuckle a bit dryly at that. He sure can’t remember why right now.

Phil stares out the window for a long time, until the sky begins to darken. It turns cobalt then navy, down to a deep black with white streaks of clouds parallel to the frozen ground. The barren, spindly trees look like felt-tip pen scribbles this far away, like the margins of Phil’s notebooks when he loses focus.

With a sigh, Phil closes his laptop and lets himself fall into bed, fully clothed. He’s suddenly exhausted.

  
  
  


Phil and a steady wifi connection figure out there’s no Starbucks around for at least 20 miles, so he takes his chances in the hotel cafe for hot coffee the next morning. He doesn’t bother to stay in, just takes a large cup and a warm croissant back to his room to indulge in under his fluffy duvet. When Phil finishes he turns on the telly, flips through a handful of French shows and news programs before landing on a movie channel and a rerun of  _ Love Actually.  _ It’s subtitled but the audio’s in English, so it’ll have to do.

It’s the part where Liam Neeson’s character is talking to Emma Thompson’s character about his stepson, how his wife had died and the stepson had fallen in love with a girl in school, locking himself up in his room to teach himself the drums to impress her. He can’t get through to the stepson, tunnel-visioned onto his goal with blinders on.

Phil presses the side of his face into his pillow and gets his phone out, adjusting the brightness down in the dim room. He scrolls back through time on his Instagram to photos from five years ago, before he felt like a stranger in his own skin, like his whole world turned upside down.

There’s photos from Christmases long past, Martyn and Cornelia and his mum and dad, crowded in Martyn and Cornelia’s London living room for dinner. Martyn had tried to cook a real Christmas roast with all the side dishes, but he’d fallen asleep and left it in too long and nearly burnt their flat down. Once Cornelia had stopped laughing, she ordered pizza for everyone and they’d opened presents among scattered Domino’s boxes.

Phil scrolls through his feed, later in the year to his birthday, Easter, Martyn’s birthday. A summer trip to Florida, Phil’s first book signing in a London bookshop. His parents were so proud of him and Phil thought he’d never seen Martyn that excited since they were kids.

The photos get thinner after that, family visits seem less and less. Eventually the photos of Martyn stop altogether.

_ Relax,  _ Emma Thompson’s character says on-screen, Phil barely awake as his eyes start to close again.  _ It was always going to be a shit time. _

  
  
  


Phil sleeps through lunch, nearly through dinner. When he wakes up it’s dark outside again, telly still on but volume pitched down low. His stomach growls a little but he can’t fathom putting himself together to leave the room just yet, so he fishes one of those cardboard health bars from his carry-on and eats it in three bites.

His clothes feel plastered thickly to his skin, so he gets out of bed and peels them off piece by piece until he’s in the bathroom, naked and shower running, steam clouding the walls. After twenty minutes and two hair washes he feels slightly more human, shoulders pink and smelling of strawberries.

Phil gets his phone off the charger and goes to open Spotify, scrolling through his playlists. Before he has a chance to pick one, he hears an unfamiliar strike of tentative piano keys through the adjacent room’s wall,  _ plink plink plink. _

He’s a little startled — he hasn’t heard any noises from that room up until this point, and it seems unlikely someone’s managed to move an entire piano in without him hearing something.

_ Plink, plink, plink.  _ The notes continue, in changing patterns like the person playing is trying them in different orders to see what sticks. Phil, void of any embarrassment though he’s still wet with shower droplets and clad only in a towel around his waist, creeps closer to the wall between himself and the piano. If asked, he wouldn’t be able to explain why the mish-mash of notes draws him closer to the blank wall, piques a curiosity that feels like it hasn’t seen the light of day in four years.

_Plink, plink_ — The notes stop suddenly, and then —

_ “For fuck’s sake!” _

Phil jumps back from the wall like he’s been caught with his hand in the biscuit tin, and only out of the corner of his mind does he hear the door of the adjacent room open and then slam immediately after.

Without thinking, Phil snatches his pyjama bottoms off the bed, tugging them on and not bothering with a shirt. But by the time he’s yanked open his door, rushed into the hallway and looked both ways, the man and his voice that seemed to make the walls reverberate have long vanished.

  
  
  


The man doesn’t come back by the time Phil decides to venture out for dinner, grabbing his phone and heading towards the cafe where he got his coffee and croissant that morning. The host that greets him at the entrance is polite and friendly, leaving him with a smile and a dinner menu at the bar when Phil asks to be seated there.

He’s just opened it when his phone vibrates suddenly on the table, glancing at his screen quickly before he answers.

“Hi Antonia,” he says in greeting.

“Phil! I wasn’t sure if you’d answer. How’s Strasbourg?” Her voice is warm and caring and against his conscious wishes, he’s suddenly hit with an inexplicable wave of loneliness.

“Yeah, good,” Phil hedges. He’s still looking at the dinner menu but not really seeing it. He reads the same descriptions over three or four times, struggling to grasp at French words he hasn’t seen in years. “I haven’t been writing, though.”

“That’s not why I’m calling, love,” Antonia reassures in her soft northern accent. They’re from the same part of the country, and she’s told him before it was one of the reasons she’d signed Phil for a book deal in the first place. “You know we have plenty of time for that.”

Phil nods, even though she can’t see him. “I know.”

There’s a soft moment of silence, a beat where neither of them know what to say. Phil knows what he’d like to say, if he were of a more sound mind, how thankful he is for her for giving him this time away, how understanding she’s been through everything, how much he appreciates it. And her.

“I know,” Phil repeats instead. He hates the tightness he feels in his throat, and the dull pain he feels in his chest gives him a sudden urge to throw his phone across the restaurant. “I’m sorry Antonia, I’m about to have dinner so can we talk later?”

She picks up the tone in his voice instantly, because she knows him as well as his own family, it seems. “Of course. Have a good dinner, go see some sights tomorrow, okay? I wouldn’t be mad if you sent me some pictures of fit French guys, either.”

Phil has to laugh, a dry chuckle bubbling up from his throat that feels foreign. “Okay, I’ll do my best.”

They end their call and Phil stares at the black screen, pressure building right between his eyes and spreading across his forehead. His view blurs again in front of him, worn wood panels of the bar bleeding into his palms that he’s laid across them, melting and swirling and Phil closes his eyes against the ringing in his ears, the onslaught of emotions threatening to spill over.

He grabs his phone and his coat off the back of his chair to push his way blindly outside, leaving the host behind him looking confused.

  
  
  


The frigid winter air actually feels good, and Phil takes deep lungfuls once he’s outside. His breath puffs out in front of him, white clouds that trail over his face when they fall back down to earth, head leaned back against the rough brick of an alley wall. He wasn’t paying attention to direction when he’d started walking, only stopped when his heart rate slowed and he felt like he could see straight again.

Slowly, Phil’s senses come back to him one by one. He can feel the chill of the cold the same time his eyes refocus, the ringing in his ears giving way to soft music coming from what sounds like a few blocks away. Phil pulls up the hood on his jumper and fastens the top buttons of his coat, letting his curiosity win out as he starts to make his way towards the sounds.

A bustling Christmas market is in the square, smaller than the ones Phil’s been to in London or even Manchester, but with stalls packed full of everything from housewares and souvenirs to platters of steaming French pastries and barrels of mulled wine. It’s easy to blend in with the crowd here, and Phil joins them, taking in the sights just like Antonia suggested.

A young couple juggle two giant bags of baguettes, pushing a stroller and clutching at the leash of a tiny, fluffy white dog. Two young women speaking German point at miniature hand-carved figurines in a shop window, pull out their cell phones to take photos of themselves re-creating their poses. An elderly man sits on a small wooden stool playing a small violin, tattered black cap overturned on the pavement in front of him with a few bills inside.

Phil listens from a distance a bit until he makes his way over, dropping a crumpled-up Euro from his pocket into the man’s hat. He nods in appreciation and continues to play.

“He’s quite good, isn’t he?” A voice pipes up next to Phil, belonging to a person he hadn’t realised was standing there. The young man gestures with his head to the violin player, brown curls bouncing a little and hands bundled up tight into his coat. “I’ve never heard that song played that way before.”

Phil doesn’t realise he can recognise the song until he listens a little harder, and the guy gives him a hint.

“ _ Dun da-dun dun, dun da-dun dun, _ ” the man hums next to him. The violin player smiles when the man lifts his hand like a conductor. “ _ Carol of the Bells. _ You must know it.”

Phil realises he does, but he didn’t know it was called that, just always thought of it as the  _ Home Alone _ song and the one he heard the Rawtenstall church choir sing sometimes when his mum dragged him on Christmas Eve as a kid.

“Yeah, the one from  _ Home Alone, _ ” Phil finally answers.

The guy’s face shuffles through several reactions in succession — shock, surprise, delight, landing there on a grin and laughing loud. He slaps Phil’s arm. “Yes!”

Phil finds himself smiling back and even laughing, in spite of himself. There’s a short pause in the conversation where they’re just kind of awkwardly grinning like idiots at each other, and Phil feels his shoulders tense up, raises his hand in a gesture to the violin player to try and shake it off. “Do you play?”

“The violin?” The guy scoffs, and at first Phil’s concerned he’s stepped on some kind of elitist musician toes having the audacity to suggest someone plays the violin. “No fucking way. Too bleedin’ difficult.”

They both watch the man continue to play, his eyes lightly shut, swaying a bit with the peaks and valleys of the song. Phil had never considered classical music romantic — had rarely even considered classical music at all other than in elevators and waiting rooms — but in this setting it feels like an intimate moment. The sounds of the Christmas market drown out around him, air thick with the threat of snow suspended in the clouds. Phil forgets everything for a minute, forgets where he is, why he’s here, the last four years.

The song ends abruptly, the makeshift bubble Phil let build around him shattering suddenly. Phil and his concert-mate clap enthusiastically, the elderly man touching a hand to his heart. “ _ Merci. _ ”

The man next to Phil drops a couple bills in the tattered cap on the ground, and the violin player says his thank yous softly again. Phil thinks he might launch into another song but at the same moment, church bells start to ring in the square, signalling the top of the hour. It seems as if it’s the man’s cue because he reaches under the stool to produce an equally-tattered canvas violin case, placing his instrument in gently. With a tip of his cap, he’s gone.

“Well, looks like our show’s over,” The man tells Phil. He pulls a black beanie from his pocket, tugs it down over his curls and tucks the tails of his scarf into his overcoat. “You like coffee?”

  
  
  


Dan is 27 years old, a grad student in London majoring in music composition and six months from graduating. He’s at the end of a spontaneous leave of absence and traveling around Europe trying to finish his thesis, which is to score a short film.

“My boyfriend and I were going to co-write it, the score I mean, because we had come into graduate school together and we were going to finish at the same time. But in the fall he decided he not only didn’t want to be a composer anymore, but he also didn’t want to be my boyfriend, so here I am, I guess,” Dan says it off-handedly as he’s rifling in his backpack for his wallet, plain and simple like he’s asking the time or ordering lunch. That’s all Phil gets at they get to the coffee stand, a friendly woman attempting to take their order despite their awfully-pronounced French and poorly-mimed hand gestures.

When they manage to crack the code and have to steaming takeaway cups in their hands, they start to walk, seemingly at the same time and in the same direction. Phil’s mind is still in a bit of a spin, a dryer cycle of  _ London, boyfriend, single, sparkly brown eyes and curls, _ and it takes him a minute to find a sentence to string together.

“Um,” Phil chokes, then coughs. “Wow, this coffee is hot.”  _ Good one, Lester. _

Dan is either too polite to laugh at him or doesn’t notice. “It is. But it’s so cold out here it feels nice.” He takes another sip, both gloved hands cradled around the cup. “I feel like I’ve been talking too much. Tell me about you.”

Phil looks over at him and has the strongest sense of deja vu he’s ever felt. Walking side by side through a tiny, snow-covered French village, feeling warmed from the inside out despite the cold that bites at his nose. But he’s never met Dan before, never been here before, never experienced this before, has no idea what brings the feeling on.

He tells Dan about writing, about submitting short stories to anthologies and every publishing house in the country, finally getting a three-book deal after he meets Antonia randomly at a party and drunkenly emails her an outline of something he’s been working on. He tells him how his first book put him on the map, the reviews for his second nearly took him off it entirely, his third somewhere out there in the distance. He says he guesses he’s come to France to try and find it.

“Have you found it yet?” Dan interrupts, tugging his knitted winter cap down again with one hand. They’ve left the Christmas market and the square far behind them now, rounding a corner of the darkened town.

“Found what?” Phil asks. He hadn’t realised he was babbling on.

“Whatever it is that will get you over your writer’s block. Whatever your third book’s going to be about, whatever’s going to inspire you.”

Dan’s eyes look at him with intent, an unwavering sense of curiosity that Phil isn’t often the recipient of after only an hour of knowing someone. They’ve stopped now, close together under a streetlamp at the end of a long, tree-lined drive that Phil recognises as the lane up to his inn. “Are you —” Phil forgets Dan’s question and points the rim of his cup at the bed and breakfast, “Are you staying here too?”

“Are  _ you  _ staying here?” Dan echoes, incredulous. “I wondered why you were walking with me all the way home but I just thought you were being a gentleman.”

“I —” Phil’s cheeks flood instantly, hot scarlet across his skin that speeds up his heartbeat and Dan lays a reassuring hand on his arm.

“I’m just fucking with you, Phil.”

Phil, thankfully, shakes the look off his face quickly this time. When he laughs, it feels forced for some reason, but Dan doesn’t notice. Dan pulls at the sleeve he’s got his fingers wrapped around. “Let’s go inside, I’m freezing my tits off out here,” and Phil follows.

Inside, it’s warm and welcoming and Phil still feels in a daze. The Christmas decorations are abundant in the lobby and surrounding common areas, miles of garland and fairy lights and enough baubles to cover the side of a building. It’s all very beautiful and festive and Phil feels rather assaulted by it all at once, everything a soft, dreamy glow around him. Had the coffee stall owner slipped some alcohol into his drink without him knowing it?

“This is me,” Dan says when they approach one of the rooms at the end of a long hallway. Phil had been walking alongside him again without realising where he was going.

“And that’s me,” Phil answers, pointing at the door next to Dan’s. He’s not even really surprised they ended up next to each other, which would normally tell him something but right now it doesn’t. He thinks back to this morning, about the person playing the piano next door and it all makes sense now.

“Well,” Dan says folding his arms as he considers the two doors. “Would you look at that.”

Phil finds courage somewhere to hold on to Dan’s gaze, a full five seconds that feels like five hours before either of them say anything.

“Goodnight, Dan,” Phil finally says, fishing his key card out of his back pocket. “I’ll see you later.”

Phil says it out of habit, not really knowing if it’s true, strangely hopeful but some backwards part of him too proud and not wanting it to come off that way.

But Dan just smiles again, teeth bright and dimple tucked into his right cheek, free hand waving over his shoulder as the other pushes open his room’s door. “We’re next door to each other Phil, I’m sure you will.” 

Back in his room, Phil gets his boots off, lets himself fall onto the bed, flat on his back. Arms and legs starfished out, he stares at the swirling ceiling, heart beating against blood and bone, layers of cotton and fleece, against the lapels of his coat and against the hand he’s laid at his chest. His laptop stares at him from across the room, screen open and dark, battery long dead from nearly two days of stillness.

“Fuck,” he mutters, low and under his breath and aimed high, words showering over him like a hail storm he had no idea was coming, didn’t think to prepare for. “ _ Fuck, fuck, fuck. _ ”

  
  
  


Someone is chopping down a tree outside Phil’s window. The axe hacks into a frost-bitten tree trunk again and again,  _ whack whack whack. _

Phil’s bed feels warm and he doesn’t want to stir but the incessant chopping pounds against his skull over and over —  _ whack whack whack! _

Just when Phil fully wakes up enough to throw the covers back, he hears the knocking coming from his door.

“Phil? Are you awake?”

Sleep-numb hands search for his glasses amongst the blankets, and Phil pushes them on his face to blink at the sunlight coming in through his window. No trees being cut down, just the knocking of an insistent neighbour at his door far too early in the morning.

“Phil, it’s like ten-thirty, get up, I’m starving.”

Dan’s voice carries clearly through Phil’s closed door, slightly high-pitched and whinging. There’s more knocking and a “Phil, are you in there —  _ oh.  _ Well, good morning.”

Phil’s yanked the door open, greeted by Dan in full winter gear, arm up in a knocking position and mouth slightly dropped in surprise. Phil doesn’t get why Dan’s looking at him like that until he feels the cold chill from the hallway slip around him in a circle, ring around his bare chest and send goosebumps across his skin.

“Shit,” Phil mumbles, ducks behind the door to yank a discarded jumper from the floor of the closet and tug it on.

“You didn’t have to get dressed just for me,” Dan says, smiling as he catches the closing door and lets himself over the threshold.

“Ha, ha,” Phil says flatly, “How are you so chipper this early in the morning? I’m not half as human as that until I’ve had at least a full cup of coffee.”

Dan leans back onto Phil’s messy bed and crumpled duvet like he owns the place, winter coat still zipped and boots hanging off the edge. “The concierge told me about a really good place for crepes in town that I want to try. Go get ready, I’ll wait.”

  
  
  


“What was your first book about?”

Dan nibbles at the edge of his crepe, rolled into a cone and held with a gloved hand at the bottom.

“Oh, God,” Phil balks, laughs a little nervously and focuses on digging his plastic spoon into the strawberry filling of his own crepe. “Um, bit of a coming-of-age story, I guess. Starts in a guy’s first year in uni, by the end of the four years he’s had a lot of ups and downs, been in some relationships, lost some, all that.”

“Semi-biographical, then?” Dan asks.

“In a way, I guess,” Phil contends. “My main character definitely had a much more interesting love life than I ever did in uni.”

Dan grins around the spoon in his mouth, locks eyes with Phil for a minute before he ducks his head. “I feel like sometimes we write what we know but sometimes we write what we wish we knew. Like we write for the life we want to have.” He puts down the crepe on the table and takes his phone out, flipping the lip of his gloves to reveal his fingertips. “If I have a melody in my head I don’t want to forget, sometimes I try to record myself humming it —” Dan taps a red button on his phone and sings into the corner where the mic is, raises his hand again like a conductor, “ _ Da da, da-da-da da da  _ —”

Phil has to grin at him from across the table and laugh, Dan laughing along with him.

“I know it’s silly, but I thought of this melody and when I recorded it, all I could think of were these photos I’d seen of those lavender fields in Provence?” Dan’s voice lilts up in a question and his fingers fly over Google on his phone. He shuffles through a few photos to show Phil, rows and rows of bright purple blooms underneath sunny summer skies in the south of France. “I’ve never bloody been there,” he says, laughing, “I don’t know why, these images just stuck while I composed it and while I kept playing it. Pretty soon I had a whole score about these lavender fields I’d never even actually seen.”

Dan talks about it almost like it was foolish to draw inspiration from a place he’s never been to, like he doubts the quality of his work based on his lack of experience. “Well, but that’s all right, isn’t it?” Phil interjects. “I didn’t have the same experience as my character in uni, writers who write historically can’t go back and experience World War Two or ancient Egypt or whatever, and they can still empathise and project and evoke emotion.”

Dan’s quiet for a long time. So long that Phil starts to wonder if he’s said something wrong or struck a nerve he didn’t know about, maybe Dan brought this up to go in a different direction and Phil steered it poorly,  _ fuck, I always do this — _

“Leo, he —” Dan stops, then starts again, “— Leo, that’s my ex-boyfriend, we were… I think I mentioned we were composing partners in grad school.”

Phil nods and sets down his crepe, suddenly feeling like something important is about to be said and he should give his full attention over.

“Leo was  _ such  _ a stickler for this kind of stuff, writing for what you knew, writing for real-life scenarios and always keeping two feet planted firmly on the ground.” Dan sets his crepe down too, and Phil noticed he hadn’t looked up at him in a while. He didn’t interrupt him.

“So when I started writing this, he dismissed it, he said it didn’t have a place in this film we were scoring and I just dropped it, I didn’t want yet another fight because God, Phil, we weren’t getting anything done…” He laughs gustily and rolls his eyes and it’s like he catches himself then, shakes out of the memory and looks up at Phil. “We were supposed to go to Provence for my birthday next summer after we graduated, see the lavender fields in bloom, celebrate being done and all that. Then everything fell apart and here I am now in the freezing cold in December instead.”

Dan just shrugs good-naturedly and downs the last of his cold tea. “But what can you do? Sometimes things don’t work out. You can’t dwell on them, right? And someday I’ll see those fields and finish composing that song.”

Dan looks like he’s fine, back to smiling again and chattering about something else. But Phil’s not an idiot. Anxious in crowds sometimes, especially in the last four years, oblivious to when he’s being too awkward or too quiet or too loud or whatever else is socially acceptable.

Maybe this is true but he can still read people if he tries, can see Dan’s smile drop when he turns his head to put his phone in his backpack and thinks Phil isn’t looking. The usual glint gone from his pupils and the lovely creases around his eyes flat against his temples.

Phil doesn’t push it, but he files it away.

“You want to get out of here?” Phil notices Dan hasn’t finished the last third of his crepe and doesn’t look like he’s about to try.

Dan nods, eyes back to sparkling, smile stretched back into confident.

  
  
  


Phil tries not to think about how it feels natural to know Dan now. Like he’s always known him, like he didn’t come to France with a purpose that he’s solely ignoring in favor of getting to know ( _ re-know? _ ) this person he just met.

He assumes Antonia would be pleased, truly concerned only with is well-being at this point. He has to admit he has been feeling better, can’t remember the last time he’s smiled and laughed for this many days in a row. But there’s still something inside him that vibrates with guilt whenever he lets his writing fall to the back of his mind, forgetting entirely why he’s come here just to get lost in brown eyes and dimples and soft smiles.

A few days later, Phil is in Dan’s room after picking up croissants and coffee from the inn’s cafe and they’re chatting idly. The TV is muted, a showing of  _ Elf  _ on a cable channel with French subtitles playing across the screen. They hadn’t made any plans today and they’re just slowly getting their morning started.

Dan’s fiddling with his keyboard, tentative, repeating chords pleasing to Phil’s ears as he plays Crossy Road on his phone. The scene is quiet but comfortably so, and Phil doesn’t realise how relaxed he is until he zones out entirely.

“Phil,” Dan starts suddenly, and turns away from his keyboard to look at him. “Why don’t you bring your laptop over and we can work a bit? I feel guilty about taking up so much of your time when you’re supposed to be writing.”

So Phil packs up his laptop into his carry-on backpack and brings it next door, and that’s how Phil finds himself back on Dan’s bed, aimlessly reading his favorite short stories for inspiration and listening to Dan play soft notes on his keyboard at the desk.

“What’s that?” Phil asks after a while. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and looks over to Dan. “What you’re playing. That’s nice.”

“That’s the lavender fields piece I was telling you about.” Dan plays another verse from it, stopping short before an end. “I’m just a little stuck on how to finish this measure.”

He looks frustrated and intent, leaning sideways to make notations with a pencil on some blank pages of sheet music. He puts the pencil back behind his ear and plays a little more, Phil watching as he chews on his bottom lip and alternates his gaze between his handwritten sheets and the keys below him. Dan hums along with the melody when he stops playing, writes a few notes and then tries them out on the keyboard, scratches them in graphite along the pages. It’s a hypnotising cycle of creating that Phil finds himself watching with fascination, opting to ignore his laptop entirely in favor of seeing what Dan will come up with next.

The soft, repeated rhythm makes Phil’s eyelids start to drop. He doesn’t want to get caught staring (and can’t offer any help with music composition aside from “That sounds nice”), so he just leans his head back against the headboard and closes his eyes. He must drift off because the next thing Phil realises is that the music has stopped and Dan is lightly tugging his laptop off his thighs.

“Hm?” Phil’s eyes flutter behind his glasses, his neck creaking when he tries to straighten it. “Ow, ow.”

Dan’s grinning at him as he sits at the foot of the bed, picking up Phil’s backpack from the floor. “You fell asleep, old man. I didn’t realise my music was that exciting.”

He’s teasing, but Phil still rushes to deny — “No, I just didn’t sleep well last night, I promise.”

Dan laughs, “I’m just kidding. I wanted to put this away so you could get more comfortable.” He opens the backpack at the wrong end and a hard-backed book falls out of the pocket, corners well-worn and cover unmarked. “Oh, is this your first book?” Dan asks, flipping it open. “Can I borrow it?”

Phil rubs the sleep from his eyes under his glasses and when he focuses on the item in Dan’s hands his heart rate triples. “No, that’s not — It’s not my book, can you — Please don’t —”

If he were seeing clearly he’d notice Dan closes the book when he hears Phil’s voice change, but still looks confused at the way Phil scrambles off the bed to forcibly take the book from Dan’s hands. They go limp in shock, Dan holding still as he watches Phil snap it shut and stuff it quickly back into his backpack. “I’m sorry Phil, I didn’t —”

Dan’s eyes are wide and confused, but all Phil can think about is getting out of this moment as quickly as possible. Chest tight with fear, waves of emotion rolling across him like cold chills of snow-bitten wind, Phil grabs his laptop off Dan’s duvet. He shoves it in alongside the worn book and tries not to think about the fact he was just comfortably sleeping in a near-stranger’s bed not moments earlier, let his guard down like he’d forgotten about everything real for a minute.

“Phil, are you okay? You don’t have to leave,” Dan’s utterly confused and Phil hates it, hates he’s the cause of the uptick of worry in Dan’s voice but he can’t even form sentences right now —

“I’m sorry, I — It’s not you okay, I’m sorry, I have to go —”

“Don’t do this Phil, tell me what’s wrong, tell me what I did,” Dan pleads and pushes himself off the end of the bed, Phil already clutching his backpack to his chest and making his way to the door. In a last-ditch effort, Dan shoots his hand out to hold lightly to Phil’s forearm. “Please, just talk to me.”

Phil doesn’t want to look at him. He doesn’t want to be cruel to Dan, someone who’s been so kind to him and who reminds him of a life he had before, when things were still okay and he still felt like himself and he knew what he wanted. His arm burns with the soft touch of Dan’s hand, and everything in his body tells him he has to get quickly away from the fire.

“I’m sorry, Dan,” he repeats, and he can’t stop the quaver in his voice. He slides his arm free from Dan’s fingers, who doesn’t hold him in place. His grip loosens feebly and Phil pushes through the door, not looking back.

  
  
  


_ I know I’m supposed to write in this journal daily. I’m supposed to be a writer, so I’m supposed to know what to say when things happen. I’m supposed to know how to articulate things in a way people can understand and relate with and my therapist says that I’m overthinking about what this journal is supposed to mean or what it’s purpose should be and that I should just freeform write and… I don’t know how to do that right now. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to articulate what I’m feeling. I’ve never not known what to say and I’m terrified. _

Phil doesn’t want to read on. Things in the journal got worse before they got better, but he flips to the middle anyway.

_ It’s been six months now and it feels like an eternity. I’ll want to text him something funny I saw on Reddit or call him and ask him something before I realise he’s not going to answer… that he’s never going to answer. I want to be angry about it, about how he died too early, too young and too quickly, how he had a whole life in front of him with Cornelia and with us and with the world. There’s nothing fair about it. I look back at our old texts and it’s like he disappeared. They just end. I guess he did disappear, really. _

Phil’s laid out under his duvet now, and flips to the end. The last entries are from this summer, the four-year anniversary.

_ It feels like I crossed some sort of bridge. Like there’s a “before” it happened and an “after” it happened and in this “after” nothing can ever feel good again. _

He doesn’t try to hide his tears. Alone in the hotel room, he lets them flow freely, down his cheeks and splashing onto the closed cover of the worn journal he hasn’t written in in months. He’s not afraid of his grief anymore, but it’s the ache of physical pain that gets him into the fetal position, face pressed into his pillow and journal clutched tight to his chest.

Phil isn’t sure how much time passes, but it feels like just a few minutes of laying there in the silent room, the sound of snow falling outside, until a knock at his door brings him back to reality.

He doesn’t move a muscle at first, ashamed maybe, or embarrassed to face the person he knows is knocking. Phil doesn’t know what to say when he opens the door and doesn’t have the first idea how to explain what made him react like that, how grief is so exhausting that sometimes you just don’t want to talk about it anymore and you would rather stay living in it than try and make it better. Like hiding away in a cave, you want to shut people out and pretend it’s not really real, like it’s not really happening and if you don’t acknowledge it then maybe things can go back to the way they were.

There’s another tentative knock, softer than the first, and Phil has to admit to himself for the first time that he doesn’t actually want to shut Dan out. That maybe these past few days have shown him there is a way out, a life he can have after the  _ after. _

He hasn’t even opened the door all the way when Dan starts talking, eyes wide and pleading and glossed with a little panic.

“Phil, I’m so sorry about what happened, I promise you I didn’t mean to pry or —”

“Dan, it’s okay, you didn’t know, it’s just this thing, I —” Phil scrambles for the right words, “I should be the one apologising for the way I snapped at you, I didn’t know what to say and I didn’t think fast enough, and…”

He finally looks up at Dan as his voice trails off, heart racing and fingers trembling and Dan looks as stressed as Phil feels. He knows there’s nothing more he can say at this point, and all he wants to do is start over.

“Let’s get some dinner, okay?” Phil says. He hopes Dan will forgive him, that maybe the fresh, cold air will wash away his feelings and they can move on.

There’s a beat where they stare at each other across the threshold, and Dan doesn’t look convinced. His eyes search Phil’s like he wants to ask more, to figure out what made Phil react the way he did, what the book meant and why he ran away.

Phil watches the thought process slowly through Dan’s expression from start to finish, until it melts away entirely. He nods carefully, small smile tracing his mouth as he holds the door to Phil’s room open with one hand.

“Go get your coat.”

  
  
  


They’d had dinner in the hotel cafe last night so they venture back to the village. Lined with restaurants and shops, there’s lots of places they haven’t tried yet, little alleys they haven’t explored. They find an Italian spot halfway down a well-lit, narrow alley, colourful fairy lights strung across the building ledges to form a makeshift canopy.

When they turn the corner, Dan makes a comment about the lights, pointing up. Phil turns his face up to look, and through his coat he almost doesn’t feel Dan slide his hand around the crook of Phil’s elbow to hold on.

It makes Phil’s heart leap into his throat. It starts to pound there against his Adam’s apple, and Phil’s sure Dan can see the movement with his head still tipped back like this, staring at the lights.

He chances a look over but Dan’s still got his face turned up, soft vanilla glow of the lights across his face like a warm sunset. Phil hadn’t noticed before how long his eyelashes were, or how the curve of Dan’s jawline frames his face into soft angles.

“Yes, Phil?” Dan asks, and Phil turns away quickly, laughs at being caught.

His phone chooses that moment to buzz in his side pocket, and he has to drop Dan’s arm to reach it.

“Sorry,” he says to Dan, who waves him off and goes to look in a shop window. “Hi, mum.”

“Child!” Phil’s mum’s voice rings out across the line. “I thought maybe you’d be busy writing and wouldn’t answer.”

“Uh,” Phil’s eyes travel to Dan, poking around a display outside of a shop and looking with interest at a Christmas ornament. “I mean, I’ve written a little bit but I’ve also just been seeing the sights.”

“That’s nice, love. Don’t worry about all that, you’ve got plenty of time to focus on writing later.”

“Have you been talking to Antonia, mum?” Phil sighs, feeling a little selfish for being annoyed that they’re just checking up on him.

“She just mentioned she hadn’t heard from you in a couple days, that’s all. Can’t I call my son and see how he’s doing when he’s halfway across the world and hasn’t called me? You could be getting into trouble for all I know.”

Dan catches his eye across the alley and holds up two pints in a pair of giant plastic cups.  _ Where’d he get pints? _ Dan shakes them gently and waggles his eyebrows at Phil for approval.

“Uh —” Phil’s voice catches in his throat and he gives Dan a thumbs-up. “Mum, it’s France, not halfway across the world. And I’m okay, I promise,” and his throat tightens again like it always does when he lies to his mum. Even a half-lie, like he thinks this one is.

“I’m glad to hear it, love. You sound happy. Happier than you’ve sounded in a while.”

He doesn't want to think about why, but that makes his eyes nearly fill with tears. He keeps them at bay by turning around, pointing his face down at the street and focusing on the lacing at his boots.

“Thanks, mum.”

“I’ll say goodbye then, Phil. You sound busy and I just wanted to tell you happy Christmas, and how proud your dad and I are of you. It’s Christmas in a few days… Will we see you?”

He thinks of his mum and dad on the Isle of Man, in their big house next to their fireplace. Their Christmas tree is probably already up, maybe Cornelia is already there to visit. He hasn’t talked to her in a while, and he makes a promise to himself to call her soon.

“Yeah, I think you will, mum.”

He hadn’t planned on it but he has a sudden ache in his heart for how much he misses his parents. The last time he saw them they’d seemed older than he remembered, slower to move, a few more gray hairs. Time is a fickle thing and he doesn’t want to waste any more of it.

When they hang up, Phil has to take a minute to get himself together. He starts to feel human again and Dan makes his way over after a minute.

He looks so hesitant to ask how Phil is, probably still spooked from earlier. Phil hates that, so he opens the door first.

“My mum,” he says, shaking the phone in his hand. “Just checking up on me.”

He doesn’t want to go into any more than right now, and Dan smiles. “That’s sweet.”

Phil nods. “She’s a sweet one. I’m lucky.” There’s a moment of silence and Phil wants to fill it up quickly so he holds his hand out. “I’m ready for the pint, I think,” he says, laughing.

Dan laughs back and hands the cup over, taking Phil’s elbow with a slight blush in his cheek when it’s offered again.

  
  
  


By the end of the night, it reminds Phil of their first night here, the Christmas market around them in a hazy blur, clouded by mulled wine and the pints from earlier and too much delicious food at dinner. Drunk on all the sensory stimulation, Phil’s eyes track to the spot between Dan’s eyebrows, down the elegant slope of his nose, somersault off the dip at the Cupid’s bow of his top lip.

He has to look away to hide his smile against his cup. It’s not embarrassment this far into his third serving of wine, but he’s afraid if he keeps looking, he’ll lose all composure and tackle Dan into the hedges at the pavement.

“Where are you?” Dan asks, chuckling slightly. He pulls at Phil’s arm. “I’ve been telling you this very interesting story for five minutes and you’ve been somewhere else the entire time.” His tone is light, teasing.

Phil chances a look up. They’ve come to a stop between two closed storefronts, and it’s just started to snow. It’s light, a dusting really, but the clouds above are prominent enough to be visible against the black of the sky and Phil knows it’s only going to get worse.

“You’re just…” Phil starts before he can stop himself. “You’re something, Daniel Howell. You’re something else.”

It sounds so stupid in his head, even more stupid coming out of his drunk, wine-stained mouth, and he expects Dan to laugh in his face or look at him like he’s speaking Greek.

But he does neither. He just smiles again, the beautiful smile that makes his eyes slit into half-moons and makes his cheeks rose, and chuckles. Dan doesn’t seem to need an explanation because he just reaches up and brushes snow off the brim of Phil’s cap, smile sliding into something more like contentment.

“You’re something yourself, Philip Lester.”

Phil hadn’t realised how close they’d moved until he doesn’t have to speak loudly to be heard, Dan pressed up into his space without actually touching any part of him.

“Am I?”

“I hope you know you are,” Dan breathes back.

It’s maddening, the feel of his heart rate against his fingertips as they ache to draw Dan closer to him. Little tendrils poking out from under the brim of his hat, curling in the heavy air as the snow starts to come down harder. Phil feels Dan’s gloved hand against his arm and before he does something embarrassing like push in, Dan speaks softly.

“We should go back to the hotel. I think it’s going to storm.”

  
  
  


Dan takes his arm again in the short walk back to the hotel, but by the time they get back the rate of snow falling has increased at least by double. They’re shaking their coats off in the lobby when the concierge sees them.

“The storm must have started,  _ oui?  _ The news said it would be a bad one.”

“Is it going to snow all night?” Phil asks.

“ _ Oui,  _ and all day,  _ monsieur. _ We should get several feet of snow before it’s over. I’m glad you both made it back in time.”

It feels like the end of a date when they get to the juncture where their doors meet. They stand in front of them in the hallway, clearly not wanting to separate, but Phil unsure of what to do or say to prolong the night. It turns out he doesn’t have to, because Dan does it for him.

“Do you want to come in?”

Phil feels Dan’s hand slide out from the crook of his elbow as he takes his glove off, reaches for his room key in his back pocket.

An overwhelming desire to shout  _ yes of course can we stay there for the rest of the year  _ runs through his mind. He wants to, he knows that, but he’s scared something is going to happen again like today. When the anxiety and fear get too bad and they squeeze around his middle so profoundly that Phil doesn’t know where his next breath is going to come from.

“You don’t have to, I just thought maybe if you weren’t super tired yet, we could watch something on your laptop, or I could play for you again or —” Dan rambles.

“I do,” Phil says. “I do, yeah. Let me change and I’ll be there in a minute.”

When Phil’s de-wintered himself of all the cold-weather gear and changed into black jeans that don’t have melted snow all over the ankles, he finds a soft jumper and takes out his contacts. His hair is a little fucked from being under the hat but there isn’t much he can do about that so he just fluffs it up with his fingers in the front, grabbing his laptop on his way out the door to go back next door.

Dan answers after the first knock, also down to normal street clothes and fluffy black winter socks. “Your feet look warm,” Phil comments. Dan wiggles his toes when he lets him in.

“They are. Fluffiest, warmest winter socks on the internet, mate. I did my research.”

They get Netflix set up on the hotel’s less-than-ideal internet connection, and Phil doesn’t insult Dan by pretending to be surprised they’re going to be watching it in bed together. It’s freezing in the little room, and Phil gratefully slips under the duvet that Dan opens up for him.

He wants to just let things happen. Phil’s spent four years at what felt like the edge of a cliff some days, the smallest thing threatening to push him over into a complete breakdown, and he’s tired. He wants to be happy, he wants to feel like he used to again.

“Is that okay, Phil?”

Dan’s voice brings him back in, and he blinks a few times. “Sorry?”

“Can we just watch  _ Friends _ or something? I don’t really want to pay attention to anything right now, I’m kind of tired.” Dan punctuates it with a yawn behind his hand.

“Oh, yeah that’s fine. Let me bring it up.” Phil types it in Netflix, and starts them off in season 6, after Rachel and Ross get drunkenly married in Vegas. “This is my favorite season.”

Dan settles back against the pillows, Phil joining him as he tugs the laptop higher on his thighs. He tries not to stiffen when he feels Dan reach for his arm, tugging it around his shoulders and leaning into Phil’s chest.

“This okay?” Dan asks after a few moments.

“Yes,” Phil answers quickly. Too quick. He backpedals. “Yeah,” he says, what he hopes is more casual. He flexes his fingers at Dan’s shoulder and Dan all but purrs.

They last through a few episodes, and it’s when Ross is faking his British accent that Dan speaks up again.

“Phil, can I ask you something?”

Phil had finally loosened up, started to feel so comfortable and warm pressed up against Dan and wrapped in their blankets that he’d closed his eyes again. What was it about this bed? He just wanted to sleep for days in it.

“Mhm?” He answers.

“If I asked you to stay the night, would you?”

Phil’s eyes fly open behind his glasses, stare down at the mop of curly brown hair leaning against his chest. Dan doesn’t bother to look up at him, and he can see he’s browsing Reddit aimlessly on his phone, not even paying attention to the episode on the screen.

“Would you want me to stay?” Phil hedges.

Dan barks out a laugh. “I’m the one asking, aren’t I?”

Phil laughs, jostling Dan in his arms and keeping them wrapped around as Dan pulls back.

“Then my answer would be yes,” Phil says finally. Dan’s leaning into his space, propped up on his arm and pushing his knees into Phil’s thighs. He lets himself look in Phil’s eyes a little longer, drops his gaze to Phil’s mouth.

_ Fuck. _ Phil’s heart beats like a hummingbird’s under his skin.

“Good,” Dan says before anything else can be uttered. “Then let’s go to sleep.” He snaps Phil’s laptop shut on his thighs, passes it over and Phil sets it on the side table. Dan shuts off the lamp and the room is suddenly plunged into darkness.

They lay next to each other on their sides under the duvet, close together in the center of the bed but not connected at any point. Phil’s strangely nervous, hands gathered under his pillow and knees bent.

“Now what?” he asks softly in the dark.

Across the sheets, Dan laughs. “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

It breaks the tension a little, the fact that they’re both nervous but not trying to hide it, to be so cavalier or misleading.

“I…” Phil starts. Maybe it’s a mistake to do this but it’s been in the back of his mind all day and he doesn’t want to go to sleep until he’s said something. “I really am sorry about earlier today, Dan.”

Dan’s already shaking his head before Phil’s even done. “I told you it was okay.”

“I know but… Just let me explain.”

Dan looks like he wants to placate Phil again, let him not talk about it, but it’s not what Phil wants. He wants to be honest with himself from now on, honest about what he really feels and look introspectively and start to heal. If meeting Dan had shown him anything it was that when people wanted to help you, be it family or friends or people you just meet, it’s okay to let them. Phil takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

“Four years ago, my brother died.”

Dan’s eyes go wide and Phil wants nothing more than to look away, but he rushes on.

“It was really sudden, he got sick and within a few months he was gone. My therapist I was seeing at the time gave me the journal and advised me to write in it about… Well, whatever I wanted, I guess. It started out as a way to try and organize my thoughts and process things — God, I hate that word,” Phil gives a watery chuckle and it’s only then that he realises his eyes are full of tears.

Dan reaches across them and takes Phil’s hand out from under his pillow. He winds his soft fingers around Phil’s, holding on tightly.

“Anyway, I wrote in it a lot at first but, eventually I just started to write about my brother. I didn’t want to forget anything about him so I wrote everything I could, about what it was like when we were kids, when we shared a room, when he went to uni and came home during the holidays, when he got a girlfriend, when he moved to London…”

Phil finally squeezes Dan’s hand back. “I wrote everything about him in that journal and I’ve just. I’ve not been able to read it since I stopped writing in it.”

“Why’d you stop writing in it?” Dan asks softly.

“It got so hard, Dan. Remembering didn’t make the ache go away. It made it worse. Martyn had still been alive for my first book but I was under contract to write a second one by a certain deadline and I pushed ahead with it, even when I should’ve taken the extension they offered. It was so bad, it got awful reviews from the critics. It nearly ended my career before it’d started.”

Phil shakes his head, remembering the awful pit of despair he’d felt himself in reading those reviews and feeling them cut through him like knives.

“I wasn’t ready to go back to real life so soon.”

Dan flexes his fingers against the top of Phil’s hand. Phil sees his lips part, tongue darting out to wet them cautiously before Dan tugs a little on Phil’s arm, drawing them closer together. His eyes search against Phil’s in the dim light, moon reflecting off the bright snow outside.

“And now?”

Phil takes a breath. He wants so badly to answer in the affirmative, strong and sure. But it comes out in a whisper.

“I think that’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

They listen to each other breathe, a few aching moments until Dan slips his hand around Phil’s waist, tugs him against his chest.

“Turn around for me, yeah?” Dan requests.

Phil does what Dan asks, grateful to be done talking and suddenly so exhausted. He lets Dan arrange them into a comfortable position, an arm around Phil’s middle that Phil holds on to, their feet tangled together at the end of the bed. Their heads side-by-side on the pillow, he feels Dan press his mouth against the collar of Phil’s jumper at the back of his neck.

“You’re brave to share your story, Phil,” Dan tells him. “Get some rest now.”

Phil’s last thoughts before he drifts off are content, pearl-toned fairy lights against a star-dotted night sky. He’s safer, warmer. More cared for than he’s felt in a long time.

  
  
  


Morning comes fast. At least, it feels that way to Phil. One moment he’s easing back against Dan and falling into dreamless sleep, the next, he’s awake.

As short as the night feels, Phil wakes up rested. It’s far too early outside, he can tell by the colour of pale blue light streaming in through the curtains, the sound of the heat kicking on the only noise in the room. Remembering what the concierge said last night, he can see a line of a snowbank outside their window. He wasn’t wrong, they got at least three feet last night.

Phil’s on his back now but Dan’s still got his arm around him, head leaned into his chest and leg wound around Phil’s. He thinks he’s still asleep, but when he feels Phil stirring, Dan answers with his own grumble.

“Morning,” Phil chuckles. He runs a hand down Dan’s arm. “Did I wake you?”

There’s more grumbles, Dan covering his face from the light outside and pushing himself further under the duvet.

“Not a morning person, I see.”

“Too bright,” Dan mumbles from under the cover. “Turn off the light.”

“It’s the sun, mate. It’s like seven-a.m.”

“Too bright,” Dan says again, and Phil can almost picture his pouting face.

Phil extracts himself from the bed to close the curtains, chancing a peek outside before he does. “We’re totally snowed in,” he murmurs. “It’s kind of pretty.”

There’s rolling banks of snow outside, eye-level to Phil at the first-floor window. The tree trunks outside are half-covered, and save for a snowplow he hears in the distance, everything else is silent and undisturbed.

“Then come back to bed,” he hears Dan mutter from his place still under the blankets. Phil grins and shuts the curtains fully, the room once again plunged into semi-darkness.

“Hi,” Phil says, once he’s finally submerged and looking at Dan’s sleep-rumpled face. Dan cracks an eye open, smiling when he sees that it’s dark again.

“Hi.”

Dan brings him closer again like he did last night, fingers winding around Phil’s waist to draw him in. They’re a little colder this morning and Phil yelps when they trail up his back.

“Sorry,” Dan smiles. Phil shakes his head in dismissal, lets himself get pulled across the bed and winds his arms around Dan’s neck. He’s nervous, he can’t deny that. But it feels different than what he’s been feeling. It’s an excited nervous, one full of anticipation and a hope for something good. Phil’s not afraid. His heart races at the thought, pounds hard against his ribcage.

Dan leans his forehead to Phil’s. “Is it awkward to admit my heart’s beating so fast?” he whispers between them.

“No,” Phil answers honestly. “Mine is too.”

Dan runs his hand up and down Phil’s back, Phil tugs lightly at Dan’s hair. God, there’s so much tension. It’s palpable between them, so built up and potent Phil thinks he might actually die if something doesn’t happen right now.

“Will you let me kiss you?” Dan asks quietly, voice pitched low, eyelashes fluttering in rhythm.

Phil leans up, squeezes against curls, says “Yes, yes please,” against Dan’s already-descending mouth.

Phil didn’t realise how much he’d been wanting this the whole week, scared for it to happen but waiting so impatiently. His hands slide down almost immediately, hold Dan’s face against his own as they deepen their kisses and he feels Dan inhale sharply through his nose, trying to catch his breath.

Dan’s arms circle fully around Phil’s waist, bend at the elbow to stroke hands up and down his bare back under his jumper. Phil keens at the intimacy, arching his back to Dan’s soft hands holding him so gently and carefully.

Phil keeps a hand at Dan’s cheek as they kiss, trails one to the hem of Dan’s shirt. He pulls at it unceremoniously, drops his mouth to Dan’s neck and kisses in hot mouthfuls.

“Can I see you?” he asks. Dan nods in the affirmative and breaks away to get his shirt off, pushing Phil’s jumper up and over his head before they reconnect. Down to blissful skin on skin, Phil runs his hand through Dan’s hair and tries to bring him closer, getting distracted when Dan pushes him on his back and straddles his thighs.

“Did I tell you we’re snowed in?” Phil asks breathlessly, Dan’s mouth working on a spot at the base of his throat. His hands are everywhere, squeezing at Dan’s shoulders and buried in his curls and gripping against his hips.

“That’s good,” Dan answers absently, switching his attention to the other side of Phil’s neck. Phil’s jeans are uncomfortably tight and he arches his back a little to Dan’s mouth, brings it up to meet his own again.

“We probably won’t be able to go anywhere for the rest of the day,” Phil sighs when Dan gets a thigh between his and pushes in, easing the pressure in his trousers even just a little bit. “Maybe even the rest of the night.”

“That’s good,” Dan says again, smiles into his kisses, lets his hand stray past Phil’s waistline.

Phil frees the button on his jeans, uses the same hand to brings down the zipper. Before Dan has a chance to do anything, he pushes at his shoulders and flips them over, his knees bracketing Dan’s hips and his palms flat against his chest. “I think we should plan to stay in here all day, just to be safe. What do you think?”

Dan laughs out loud, kneads against Phil’s hips when he leans down to kiss him. “Phil,” he says matter-of-factly, “I think that is quite possibly the best plan I’ve ever heard.”

  
  
  


Phil gets a late checkout on Christmas Eve. Dan had brought his stuff over the day before since his reservation was only until the 23rd, and after he’d changed his train tickets, they’d spent most of the day and subsequent night holed up in bed. That morning, he’d dragged Dan into the shower with him just after nine so they’d have a few hours to kill before leaving.

Their trains are only an hour apart, and they hold hands under Dan’s coat in the ride over. Phil watches the snow-covered town disappear out the window as they get closer to the city centre, smiles at Dan when he squeezed his hand.

“When’s your train again?”

“Train’s at one, flight to Manchester’s at six. You?” Phil asks.

“Noon to Paris, then my flight back to London’s at eight.”

They let the timetable sit between them for a little bit. Phil resents it suddenly, their relatively commitment-free week gone in what felt like the blink of an eye and leaving them with a layer of uncertainty he doesn’t like.

“At least we have a little time at the station,” Phil tries to rationalise.

“Mhm,” Dan answers. His smile doesn't reach his eyes, and he goes to back to looking out the window.

The ride to the station is short, too short for Phil to have gotten his fill of holding Dan’s hand in his own. The cabbie helps them with their bags and Phil tips him the last of his Euros. He gives a gracious  _ Merci!  _ and tips his hat as he drives away.

When they make their way slowly inside, they don’t talk much. They find a relatively-empty waiting area up on the second floor overlooking the platforms and deposit their luggage around them, sitting among their cases and Dan’s keyboard in its gig bag with the white strap.

“You ready to go home?” Phil asks, desperate to break the tension of waiting.

“God, no,” Dan laughs, rolling his eyes. “I have to go back to school and finish that score. I got fuck-all done this week and it’s going to show. My mentor is probably going to murder me.”

“Sorry,” Phil laughs, shrugging. Dan’s eyes go comically wide and he clamps a hand over his mouth.

“No, sorry! I just meant —” Dan starts to explain and then sees Phil’s shoulders shaking with laughter. “Oh, fuck off, you know what I mean.”

“Well, I didn’t get anything done, either. So it was not a very good week for our work, that’s for sure.”

“No luck in figuring out what your book’s going to be about?” Dan questions.

Phil shakes his head. “I don’t think so. If anything I feel… more confused about writing than I did before I got here.”

Dan’s eyebrows furrow a little, and he looks around, eyes finally landing under the bench to Phil’s backpack. “What about that?” he asks, pointing.

Phil follows his gesture. “My backpack?”

Dan doesn’t answer, just hauls the heavy backpack up on the bench and seats it between them, knocking against the front pocket with his knuckle. It makes a hollow sound, bone on thick cardboard and pages of folded, worn paper.

Phil opens the zip and takes out his journal. He flips through it again, not ready to read it over just yet, but a wealth of ideas seeming to flow up from it into his mind.

“My journal.”

Phil’s tone is incredulous, dumbfounded really in that he hadn’t seen it before. But he didn’t really want to see it, if he was being honest with himself. He treated his brother’s death like something he had to get over, compartmentalize, and hide away. That wasn’t the way to remember someone like Martyn, nor was it the way to deal with his own grief.

“That’s… A really good idea, Dan. Thank you.”

They smile at each other again from across the bench, but Phil feels like Dan’s sitting a little too far away. There’s a question biting at the tip of Phil’s tongue, and as much as he desperately doesn’t want to look like an idiot, he has to ask. He zips his backpack back up and sets it on the floor again before he moves over.

“Dan? Is this…” Phil bites his lip. He hadn’t exactly thought out the phrasing before he started talking. “Is this more than just this week?”

Dan’s eyes shoot up, searching Phil’s carefully for a few agonizing moments. Phil watches his face flush in colour, a pair of bright red streaks painting down Dan’s cheeks. Before Phil has a chance to panic, Dan covers Phil’s hand on the bench with his own.

“I want it to be,” he answers quietly. “Do you?”

Phil can’t answer then, just presses into his side with relief, dropping kiss after kiss against his mouth until their laughter breaks it apart.

“We’ll figure it out,” Dan promises, his arms winding around Phil’s neck.

“We will.”  

  
  
  


Phil’s happy he remembered his sunglasses. It’s bright out here in Provence, the sun reflecting off bright purple blooms and framed only by a cloudless blue sky. Warm, breezy summer air ruffles the trees, the wide patches of sunflowers bending slightly.

He takes a few photos with his phone — symmetric rows of lavender bushes, fire-coloured sunflowers with fat green stems. He frames Dan with nothing but blue sky behind him, looking down at his phone in one hand and trying to fluff up his curls with the other.

“My hair looks awful, don’t document this Phil,” Dan pleads.

Phil begs to differ. He takes mercy on him and just takes one photo that he promises he won’t share, leans in to Dan’s back by winding an arm around him and pressing a soft kiss at his temple.

Dan sighs, puts his own phone down. “Hey, did you send the draft to Antonia?”

“Yeah, last night.” Phil looks down at his screen again. “I was just going to check now to see if she replied… Ah, yup.”

Phil shows Dan his phone, Antonia’s subject line  _ READ YOUR FIRST DRAFT SO GOOD CAN’T WAIT TO TALK NOW ENJOY PROVENCE AND STOP WORKING, BOTH OF YOU _ screaming out from the top of Phil’s inbox. Dan laughs and puts his own sunglasses back on, making his way towards the rows of lavender. When he reaches for Phil’s hand, he doesn't hesitate to thread their fingers and start walking side by side.

“How do you feel?” Dan asks, swinging their hands a little.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that, birthday boy? You finished your score, you’re finally done with your degree, offered a teaching spot in London next fall, and we’re here in your lavender fields,” Phil teases.

Dan smiles good-naturedly, and he nods. “I’m really happy, for those and for other things, too. But I want to hear about you first.”

It’s something Phil’s had to get used to these last six months, someone caring about him deeply enough to accept everything on the plate — good and bad, beautiful and tumultuous. Writing this third book had been really hard, like losing his brother all over again as he re-read through his journals and tried to arrange his memories together into something that looked like a novel.

“I’m happy Antonia liked it,” Phil answers carefully. “I’m relieved I don’t have to write it anymore, except for the edits.”

Dan looks at him as they slowly come to a stop at the end of the empty field, sea of purple blossoms around them and no one within view. Phil lets go of Dan’s hand when they gather under the shade of a large olive tree, unfolds the sheet from his backpack that they can sit on over the plush grass. Phil settles to lean against the wide trunk, one leg bent to accommodate Dan’s back against his chest.

“What else?” Dan prompts, his head leaning back on Phil’s shoulder.

Phil finds Dan’s hand again, turns it over in his palm like he’s seeing it for the first time. “I’m grateful that you suggested it. It was really difficult to get through, but by the end, I felt like maybe… Maybe it’s something Martyn would be proud of. And maybe it will help other people if they’ve lost someone like I did."

Dan pulls his head back, props his sunglasses up on his head to look into Phil’s eyes. “I know he would be. I am too.” 

Dan smiles at him again, the small one he saves for Phil, the one he saw so many times the first week he met Dan, the one he’s spent six months falling in love with. Phil runs his thumb along Dan’s bottom lip, leans down to press a kiss onto it. 

When he leans his forehead against Dan’s, surrounded by fragrant summer air and abundant sunshine, he feels like he can take on anything. Ready for the _after_ , no matter what it’s got in store for him. 

**Author's Note:**

> there is actually a real, incredibly lovely song about lavender fields written by brian cain that i listened to for inspiration for dan’s song. [you can listen to it here](https://youtu.be/jP2ZWolm4Zg).
> 
> you can share the post on tumblr [here](http://kay-okays.tumblr.com/post/181463473262/fic-song-and-story). thank you for all the nice things you say about my fics. <3


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